On Oct 17, 2007, at 19:05, Kate Henry wrote:
Undoing two hitches worth at the end still leave one to hold the
bobbin secure while I try to work to an area of clothstitch. Untied
bobbins with only an inch of thread left on them will be a major fuss
to work with.
That's where I get to practice my weavers' knot :)
I keep a few bobbins on hand, each of which has some half a yard or so
of odd/leftover thread wound on it. Those bobbins serve as my "bridges"
or "patches". When my working bobbin gets perilously close to emptying,
but the safety net of cloth stitch is still an inch or so away, I
unwind whatever's left on it, and tie it to the "patch-up" bobbin. I
then reload the working bobbin fully and run the two together, as one,
for a few stitches -- to make sure that there's no hole left, due to
the abrupt departure of one bobbin and the introduction of its
replacement. Once the "patch" is secure, the old bobbin gets thrown out
(to be cut off later) and the newly-reloaded one continues, solo.
That manœuvre allows me to keep using the "leash" of the old thread
long enough to get over the ground safely, even in laces where cloth
stitch areas are rare or non-existant. And it allows me to do it with
relative comfort -- the outgoing thread isn't any shorter than the rest
of them.
It also, as I'd said, lets me practice my weavers' knots. In the old
days, when my threads used to break all the time, I got a lot of
practice at tying those -- the replacement manœuvre is, afterall, only
an extension of the technique used to cope with an unexpected break in
the thread. But now that I don't break as many threads as before, I'm
afraid of forgetting how to tie that knot and this is as good a way as
any of keeping the skill alive.
I'm "with" Barb ETx: the more knots you tie, the more you have to
untie, so, unless I can cut them off instead (like on the "patch-up"
bobbins), I don't tie them. But then... I don't go demonstrating, my
floor is solid, I don't have cats who'd play ducks and drakes with my
pillow during my absence, and I don't use glass bobbins. So, tying a
knot at the start is more effort than it's worth to me.
T, who -- just yesterday -- discovered that Dick (Deadeye) Cheney (US
VP) is "family"; a (rich) relation. Thankfully, 350yrs removed, but...
The embarrassment! The shame!
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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